Stretching
by august
Summary: After returning to the Alpha quadrant, Janeway finds time to kick back and relax on a beach.


Stretching by august c1998 

Characters owned by Paramount, story owned by August 

Rated R. 

And then I sighed, and just lay content in the sun. A part of me never believed that I would one day find myself back here on the beaches of California. A part of me still didn't believe it. 

Yet my eyes, my ears, my body told me different. I, Kathryn Janeway, was lying in the glorious sand, digging my feet into the burning hot grains, just to remind myself of the fact. I rolled over on my towel, and sighed again as I felt the sun beat down upon my skin. For the first time in my life, I hadn't worried about putting sunscreen on before going to the beach. And you know, at this moment I didn't particularly care if I was burnt to a crisp. 

I was home. 

It was over. 

In the end it had taken almost eight years. Eight years of the Delta quadrant. Eight years of being the embodiment of Starfleet. Eight years of being Captain Janeway. 

And here, finally, I'm just Kathryn. 

After so long, the strangest thing was hearing my name again. Meeting my mother and Phoebe had been a different kind of strangeness - they had been at HQ when Voyager had docked. I had prepared myself for tears, for the onslaught of emotion - but in the end what had really thrown me was hearing my name being spoken again. It was spoken with love, with a familiarity that had been absent over the years. 

In fact, in the eight years we had been spaced, only one person had ever spoken my name that way. I guess I always knew it, but had just never stopped to think about it at the time. 

Another mistake I had made. 

The de-briefing and meetings had seemed to go on forever. The last thing I wanted after living, breathing and being Starfleet for almost a decade was to be cooped up inside their damn offices for weeks. I had the whole world to reacquaint myself with. But that was how it was to be, apparently. It was just another thing I was going to have to get used to - not being the be all and end all of the chain of command. 

Now I had Admirals and Commodores to contend with. Suddenly being a Captain didn't seem like such a paramount title, the pedestal didn't seem so high. And that wasn't such a bad thing. 

I stretched again on my towel. It felt like it had been eight years since I had stretched. That's what I'll say to the reporters - eight years without a stretch. Eight years without a substantial range of coffee. Eight years without so much. 

And I'll go ahead and say it. Eight years without sex. 

Had I not been there, I don't think I would have believed it. Mark certainly wouldn't have believed it. I like sex. I like it a whole lot. I'm not really into one night stands, I generally need some sort of emotional connection for it to be good for me. 

But I'm also not totally impervious to the comfort that the feeling of having a warm body move on mine can give. Looking back now, I think that that was half of my relationship with Justin. I was young and scared to death by what I had seen in the Cardassian camps. He held me just *so* right and I see now that a lot of the love I thought I had for him was really just lust. 

But I had a hell of a lot of lust. 

I still do. And that's why I can't believe that I lasted eight years without acting on it. But things were different out in the Delta Quadrant - there was no room for transfers, no place to escape should a lover get too . . . demanding. And more than that, they were mostly all kids. And I was too old to train someone on the model again. 

But then, of course, there was Chakotay. 

My age, sexy as hell and full of passion, to boot. And in love with me, at least in the beginning. But I knew that if he made me breathless from across the room, I would lose myself if I was to touch him. So I didn't. And we didn't. Another mistake. 

And so I was regulated to the world of fantasy and holosex. Neither were particularly appealing. I've always liked reality a hell of a lot better than fantasy. And holosex just makes me laugh. At one point, in the first couple of years of my Delta exile, I had activated an old gothic programme, from sheer frustration alone. But my prospective "love interest" Lord Burleigh, had made me burst out in laughter the first time he had touched me. It had been deactivated soon after that. 

And it appeared that I was to spend my years with the company of myself, so to speak. Who knows what would have happened, should the eight years really have turned into sixty? What I do know was that those eight years were spent very very much alone. 

And that's why, lying here on this beach today, it makes me stretch and curl up my toes at the thought that two weeks back from the Delta Quadrant, and the lover I have finally taken is the man who was with me all along. Chakotay. 

Another of life's little ironies, I guess. 

It seems funny to me that we would finally come together only after returning. I personally don't subscribe to certain ideas of the protocol of command. It makes no sense to me and to be perfectly frank, I think it's bullshit. I have more faith in my ability to command than to have to close off my personal life in case it should affect me. 

I stayed away from Chakotay because he scared me. Not because it was inappropriate to be involved, not because it would compromise my ability to make decisions. Because he just plain scared me. I am too old to be embarking on a dazzling love affair which completely drains me. So I don't really understand how, on that night, I made the decision to do just that. 

All I know was that on the night I saw Chakotay again after being separated upon return, I was probably at the lowest I had been for a while. I don't know what I felt. Tired. More comfortable with my crew than with my family. Indifferent to Starfleet command. Disillusioned. Old. Pick your adjective. 

I remember when I was at the Academy, reading Phsyc. reports of the 'group' mentality of survivors of POW camps, and the eugenics pens. One of the characteristics of the survivors was the tendency to cling together - to live their life with people who had seen the same things, lived through the same times. 

It was this reason that I put off meeting back up with my crew until two weeks after we had returned. Most of the de-briefings had ceased, only the command level officers were still being detained. Someone - I'm not sure who, had planned a beach party on the west coast, California to be exact. It was just a quick beam over from Starfleet HQ, but seemed like so much more of a trip to make. 

I had spent the past two weeks recovering from the past eight years. It's funny how the moment you become directly removed from the experience, it effects you. I wasn't sure how well I would handle being in it all again - being moved to the role of *Captain* Janeway again. I wasn't sure if I had it in me to make the effort. 

But I went. 

And it was nice seeing everyone again. *Nice.* That sounds quite trite, doesn't it? But I had spent the past two weeks trying to distance myself from this crew - I don't know how else to explain the sensation without losing myself in it. 

I spend the night chatting to Harry and Paris, and little Kim Wildman who wasn't so little anymore. She had dragged me to meet her father, who was too busy getting re-aquatinted with Sam to really care. I liked that. 

I talked to Chakotay a few times, as well. It was always across a table, or a group of people, or a Commodore who "was really interested" in my tale. I hated having my life regulated to a series of tales. I especially hated it when it kept me from talking to Chakotay. 

And then finally, as the night was drawing to a close, he found me. 

"Shall we take a walk?" He asked, and I nodded. Up until that moment, I had been hesitant to go to him, lest I fall into survivor mentality and did *go* to him because he had seen what I had seen. 

But walking with him, along the beach, it had struck me. I noticed everything - the way he automatically fell into step with me, the way I suddenly became acutely aware of his breathing. I noticed the way we finished off each other's sentences, and the fact that I didn't have to look at him to realise he was smiling. 

Walking with him, along the beach just metres up from where I am now, I realised that I was more complete with Chakotay than I was without him. And that I loved him. 

When that particular realisation struck me, I stopped suddenly in the sand. 

"What?" He had said, turning to look at me. "Are you tired?" I shook my head, but didn't move. "I'm sorry, you must be exhausted, this is probably the first break you've had." He moved closer to me, which was probably the worst thing he could have done - he was so close I could smell him. 

"I'm not tired." I managed to say, still fighting with all these thoughts. 

"Kathryn?" He touched my elbow, and stared at me with concern. 

"I've missed you." I said softly, looking up at him. 

"I know." He turned and continued walking, slowly this time. "I've missed you. I've thought about you." 

"You have?" 

"Constantly." He snuck a glance at me. 

"How are they treating you?" I said, not wanting to address *that* just yet. 

"Oh, as well as you can expect for a Starfleet-turned-Maquis-turned-Starfleet officer." He said, and I laughed. I had forgotten how much I laughed when I was around him. 

"Where are you living?" I asked, running my foot through the sand. 

"Up near HQ. It's just a temporary thing. I have to work out what I'm going to do." 

"You're not staying in 'Fleet?" 

"I don't know." He studied me intently. "It depends." 

"On what?" I asked stupidly, already knowing the answer. 

"Kathryn." He began, and then stopped. "I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to be interested in your life. How much I'm allowed to know you, in the Alpha Quadrant." 

"You've always been allowed in my life." 

"Not really." He said, and we both knew it was true. 

"Kathryn-" He began, turning to face me. 

"-I've missed you." I repeated from before, cutting him. We stood in silence for a moment, and then I leaned forward to touch my head against his. His arms went to behind my ears and he sighed. 

And then I was sitting on the beach, and Chakotay was on his knees in front of me. It couldn't have been a more perfect setting if I had holo-programmed it - the waves were whispering behind me, the moonlight was spilling above me and Chakotay was before me, eyes full of beauty and desire. 

And I pulled him to me. It had been such a long time, my stomach felt all shaky just at the *idea* of kissing him. I don't really know how Chakotay kept himself occupied during those eight years, I didn't really see him as a holo-sex kind of guy. But the way he came to me, in one quick movement and something like a growl, it made me shake even more and suspect that it had been a long time for *both* of us. 

And it had been such a long time since I had had sex on a beach - but I think last night was the first time I had ever really made love on one. A friend once pointed out the distinction to me, and it's all I can think of today. At some point I noticed that he was crying a little, and that made me hold him even tighter. It wasn't particularly passionate or explosive - not how I imagined, but it had the moonlight on his shoulders and his tears on my cheeks and I was happy. 

He made me happy. I realised it a long time ago, I acknowledged it then. And I kissed him and realised that I really *was* more complete with him than without him. And that made me happy as well. 

And so here I am today. Battle weary Kathryn, resting in the sand. My lover is swimming in the ocean ahead of me, and as I look up he waves. I can feel my breath quicken as he runs over to me. This, I thought as he falls next to me on the towel, speckling me with cool drops of the ocean, is what I have lived this long for. Not to hurtle through space, not to command troops in a war against the Dominion, but to lie next to my lover on the beach, thinking only of his arms around me and the sand below me. 


End file.
